Brewing Differences....

So I am sitting in Starbucks. In the Beijing airport. If that's not weird enough-- after all, we know Starbucks owns the world--there is a KFC directly above my head with a Celestial Kitchen on one side and a chicken roasting place on the other. And I'm looking at a big fountain with Foo Dogs holding it up.

The flight was actually great-- I upgraded to economy plus and they gave me a row of 5 seats to myself. Perhaps because of my giant American ass? We've been wandering around the Beijing airport for the last few hours-- the flight we were scheduled on was actually 2 hours later then they had said it would be, so they booked us on another flight, which meant we had to travel back to another terminal (Beijing is the world's largest airport-- the bus ride from one terminal to another takes 15-20 minutes!) all the while dragging our luggage, bc you can't check it in more than 2 hours prior to a domestic flight. So by this point, I was ready for a little collapsing and going to my comfort zone (i.e. Starbucks).

A couple (very sleep deprived) impressions so far:

Beijing is surrounded by mountains. For some reason I hadn't really processed this. And they are like no mountains I've ever seen-- they have the weathered, rolling look of the Appalachians, but under a thin cover of green it's all bare rock, somewhat like the desolate slopes of the Rockies. In fact, there's already snow on some slopes. The land, too, as we flew in from the North is all brown-- it makes you realize how much we take North America's arability for granted. I don't think I've ever really flown over huge stretches of non-cultivated land-- land where you really can't cultivate anything. I read that China has approximately the same land mass as USA, but 1/3 of the arable land. Flying in really drove that home.

They are taking H1n1 VERY seriously. We were greeted at customs by rows of masked employees-- everyone wanted to avoid our germs. In the domestic terminal it's nowhere near as dramatic, but I'd say 1 in 20 people are wearing masks.

We must have come in at the same time as a flight from Japan, because I've already seem some great street fashion. My favorite so far? Purple and black leggings, open motorcycle boots, gauzy scarves, a black cowboy hat. On a guy.

Yes, Chinese people want to practice their English on you. I've already had a conversation about a woman's flight from Germany and another woman's research on how Holland markets its fruit. I've been too scared to try out my Chinese yet-- especially since I have a travel companion who knows what he's doing :)

I should reach my apartment about 10 tomight, which means I'll have been travelling for about 26 hours. Which explains why this is such a boring post. Tommorrow I'll try to get up some pics of my apartment and maybe a journey to the local market.

Thanks for the comments! It was so exciting to open the blog and see them. Also heartening to know that Tony and cheese are in close contention for most missed item.